COLUMN: Owls' football opener shows that a `golden game' means paying a steep price for gold

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by Alex Chapman

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It did so against Ohio State University.

The smallest school in Division I-A on the field with the biggest.

The game, a 70 to 7 loss, was painful to watch.

From the looks on the faces of some of the players, it was probably painful to play, as well.

For one week, Rice University was a punchline for jokes made by local sportscasters all across the country.

It's not permanent, of course. It will probably be entirely forgotten by the time next week rolls around unless we lose 70 to 7 again this weekend to Tulane.

The game affects the rest of the season on the field, very, very little.

Losing by 63 points does not build character for a football team.

It didn't show them what they should aspire to become either, unless the lesson from this game is that our offensive linemen should gain about 50 pounds and our wide receivers should become much faster.

It's not an indication of how the Owls will play the rest of the season. Very few people confuse the University of Texas at El Paso with Ohio State.

In the end, the only effect on the season will be a loss on the final record.

So why did we play Ohio State University? The answer is simple: money. Road games against Ohio State pay well.

You may hear other answers, but money is the heart of the matter.

Ohio State University rented the Rice football team for a scrimmage on Saturday so they could rack up big numbers and improve its position in the polls.

The technique worked: Ohio State rose from 10th to eighth in the latest polls and inspired confidence in its players and fans.

Rice University will receive less money from the Western Athletic Conference than it did from the Southwest Conference.

And home games against WAC teams will attract smaller crowds than games against the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston.

There simply aren't going to be that many people who choose to make road trips from Hawaii.

There are a number of schemes to improve revenue, but aside from playing Ohio State, most of them involve waiting for the Oilers to leave town.

Rice University does not make money from the sports program, at least in a direct fashion.

We play Division I-A football for reasons of prestige and tradition.

I'm certainly not going to use this space to attack the school's decision to play I-A football.

It can encourage alumni support for the school and increase our visibility (usually in a more positive light than the Ohio State game).

For example, the victory over the University of Texas on national television was a great moment in school history.

I don't want to attack the football players, either. They played hard against Ohio State; they were simply outmanned.

I was proud to be represented by them, regardless of the score.

But throwing away the first game of the year is unfair to those players who work hard at their sport.

Ohio State is not a rival, nor a competitor, nor a matchup that anyone, anywhere, truly wished to see.

Instead, we could have found a regional competitor who might have played a home and home series, or a team which has a historic rivalry with Rice.

We're paying for our expensive new video scoreboard and our new logo, and we're selling out our football players to do so.

Ken Hatfield had no right to get angry at Ohio State for trying to run up the score.

Hatfield refused to discuss his confrontation with Ohio State Head Coach John Cooper after the game, saying only, "Everyone wants to go for the golden game. Everyone wants to score 100."

That may be true, but Rice was the team going for the `golden game' Saturday.

I hope you will enjoy seeing replays of the Ohio State game on the new scoreboard.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the September 13, 1996 issue.

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